


Without Purse Girl

by ships_to_sail



Category: Boy Meets World
Genre: F/M, Family Feels, First Kiss, First Love, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Multi, OT3, Origin Story, Pining, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Shawn is my baby, Topanga gets a bad rap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-09-27 18:37:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10038794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ships_to_sail/pseuds/ships_to_sail
Summary: Despite their desperate searching, Cory, Shawn, and Topanga can't find Shawn's mysterious Purse Girl. Shawn so badly wants what Cory and Topanga have: can they find a way to give it to him?





	1. Present Day

When Shawn stopped to think about the words that had built his life, he was always surprised to see that family breached the top five. Growing up in various trailer parks before landing in Philadelphia, his ideas concerning home, family, and worthiness had developed on a rather sliding scale. 

Until, at first, Topanga. And then, Cory. Most people didn't know that. That he met and befriended Topanga first, when Cory was still being convinced by his other ‘friends’ that Shawn wasn't worth befriending because he was poor. That hadn't mattered to Topanga, and so while Cory had now become the other half of him, the glue that held was Topanga. 

Which is what made it so hard to turn the car around and put an end to everything he'd worked so hard on making good about his life. 

By the time Shawn walked back in the front door, he'd half talked himself out of what he was about to do. He loved them both so much, god damn it, that none of the rest of it should matter. He shouldered his messenger bag, ready to eat a crow-filled humble pie, as the door swung inward and noticed his little family sitting in the living room. In the dark. At eleven at night. On a Tuesday. His heart dropped through his feet. 

“Shawnie!” Cory croaked from the couch, his voice ragged. 

“Hey Shawn,” Topanga said. She motioned him inside. “Have a seat. Cory and I have something we need to tell you.” He dropped his messenger bag and kicked the door closed behind him. Three steps from the love-seat, he froze. In the shadow, outlined on the table, was a thin plastic stick he knew all too well. He tried to swallow, his throat suddenly bone dry. He brought his eyes to Cory’s. 

“Congratulations, daddy.”


	2. A First Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shawn's no stranger to getting drunk and making bad decisions. But this decision may just be the worst one yet.

The first kiss Cory and Shawn ever had was rushed, over far too quickly for either of them to be sure what happened. Honestly, Shawn still didn’t count it as a first kiss. It had been almost brotherly - a quick swipe of lips across a cheek, barely even grazing the corner of Shawn’s mouth, as the two prepared to open the doors of the senior class hall for the first time. 

If Shawn was asked when their first kiss happened, he would have said that it was weeks later. After they tried - and failed, and tried and failed again - to find the purse girl, Shawn made an equally horrible decision to get rip-roaringly drunk and pass out in Cory’s old treehouse.

When he woke up, Cory was curled up around his feet, several blankets thrown over both of them. It wasn’t winter yet, but it was Philadelphia, so the early morning air had a hard edge to it, which wasn’t helping Shawn’s headache at all. Neither was the fact that he was pretty positive he’d swallowed a million cotton balls and his back was screaming at him for the awkward way he’d slept. He did his best to shift out from under Cory without waking him, but with no such luck. The curly head popped up the second Shawn twitched a muscle, a concerned smile flitting across his face.

“Morning.”

“Morning. You didn’t have to do this, Cor.”

“Do what?”

“Sleep out here. It’s freezing, and I’m alright.”

“Are you, Shawn? Are you alright?” The big brown eyes across from him filled with concern, pressing into Shawn and filling his chest with the weight of regret. He didn’t want people to be worried about him. He didn’t deserve to have people worry about him. And he especially didn’t want Cory to worry about him. He did his best to throw on his nonchalant smile.

“Me? Yeah, I’m fine! This isn’t the best look, necessarily, but I just needed one night to get it out of my system and there you go - it’s out!” He threw his arms wide and tried to rise to his knees, but the earth shifted beneath him and his stomach roiled. He crashed backwards onto his tailbone, and before he could stop himself tears sprang to his eyes. Cory switched his weight around, coming to sit by Shawn’s head.

“Shawn, are you alright?” Even though Shawn knew that this time Cory was asking about the mini-fall, it felt like he’d lost control of some deep-rooted thing inside himself and he couldn’t stop his body from shaking, couldn’t tamp down the tears that were suddenly blurring his vision more than the whiskey - dear god why had he chosen whiskey - last night. Shawn closed his eyes and felt Cory wrap his arms around him. The only thought in his mind was how lonely he felt - how much some part of something inside him so badly wanted what his best friend had with the love of his life. How, wrapped up deep in that, was a want of Cory that went beyond anything he had previously been able to get used to. In that moment, thinking that thought, Shawn lifted his chin and pressed his lips to Cory’s.

He wondered if it was the suddenness of the thought or his desperate desire to stop the words flowing out of his mouth: “so much Cory I want it so much so so much I don’t know what to do I want what you have Cory help me please so much” in a stream that seemed like it may never end on its own. But, as much as his conscious mind had trouble coming to terms with the steps that brought him there, the bottom line was this: there was nothing in the world his heart wanted more than Cory Matthews.

He felt Cory’s lips move beneath his, first in the final shapes of whatever reassuring words he’d been shouting back against the waves of Shawn’s misery, and then in the supple patterns that Shawn recognized from kissing girls all over the country. Girls. Girls all over the country. He decided to ponder the full ramifications of his actions later and turned off the thinking part of his brain. He let that feeling part - that dangerous, reckless, potentially devastating part - take over. 

He felt two large hands on either side of his face, Cory teasing at his bedhead, running the short strands at the nape of his neck over and around his fingers in a way no one ever had before. Shawn hadn’t realized how erotic he found his hairline until those calloused, probing fingers sent sparks of electricity to the tips of his toes. Without thinking, he caught Cory’s lower lip in his and bit on it ever so gently, feeling a growing heat touch his cheeks when a deep, almost-growl issued forth from Cory. Cory pressed Shawn further back in a way that seemed almost out of character for such a gentle person, and Shawn felt the weight on him like an anchor, for which he was overwhelmingly grateful. Inside that kiss was all the unmooring Shawn had felt over the last several months - years? - and all the desperate stability he was reaching for, even though he didn’t know how. He pressed his chest against Cory’s in an attempt to steal his warmth, his solidity, the parts of him and his life that he’d always yearned for. 

Shawn drank his fill of Cory, his own hands wrapped up in the dense bed of curls and pulled now and then, just far enough so he could feel fresh air against his flushed cheeks, just enough to remind him that this was real time, a real decision they were both making. Until Cory’s hands landed on the edge of Shawn’s jeans, having made their way with scratching ferocity to just below the Levi’s tag on the back of the waistline. They hesitated there, and Shawn’s breath hitched. He tried to stamp it down, to plow ahead and wrap Cory back up in another mind-sweeping kiss, but it was too late. Cory pulled back and looked at Shawn. The distance was too much.

The cold morning air swept in and Shawn felt exposed, naked, too raw to deal with what suddenly felt like a superhuman amount of sensory input crashed into him. The light was too bright, the air was too cold, and the hangover cotton he’d been wrapped in was falling away, leaving him reeling. He looked at Cory - breathing hard, one hand still on Shawn’s hip with the other unconsciously tracing the edges of his swollen lips and it was all too much. Shawn opened his mouth to speak, snapped his jaw closed, and did what he always did - he ran.

He pushed past Cory, practically throwing himself head-first down the treehouse ladder, and took off down the block. It took twenty minutes before he felt in enough control to slow down to a jog, another ten before he stopped entirely, and only a minute later he found himself throwing up in the gutter. His mind raced, his heart fluttered, and he knew - things were going to be very, very different from that moment on.

*

When Cory Matthews climbed the ladder the previous night, he hadn’t expected to find Shawn as drunk as he was. Drunk, yes, but not that drunk. Not so drunk that he’d been incapable of getting himself inside, so drunk he’d put no more than ten words of English together in a coherent way throughout the course of the night. The words he had managed to get out, though, broke Cory’s heart.

His best friend was hurting. The person he thought of as his brother - would have preferred to think of as his only brother, was hurting in a way Cory couldn’t understand. Shawn wanted what Cory had - what he’d never had. And Cory already had it. Cory listened to Shawn and felt the same thing he always felt when Shawn was anything but happy: the pressing urge to make him feel better, whatever the cost. As the night wound it’s way into dawn, as the temperature dropped and they burrowed under the blankets Cory had brought from inside, Shawn’s speech slowed and coalesced into one coherent thing, repeated over and over: Cory and Topanga were in love and Shawn didn’t know how to be. He’d tried and failed. And that’s where Shawn landed, whispering ‘I failed’ over and over again until he passed out completely. 

Cory stayed awake a little longer, watching Shawn sleep and doing his best to take care of him. He brushed Shawn’s hair out of his face, straightened his clothes and threw his friend’s dead weight into a position that looked at least mildly comfortable. Then he settled in for the rest of the night. At no point did he think about going inside, as someone more sane might have - he just knew, without having to push too much at the thought - that Shawn couldn’t wake up alone after a night like that. Cory pretended not to hear the small voice at the back of his mind that insisted that Shawn should never have to go to bed alone, period. That wasn’t something Cory could change, and Cory notoriously did not do well with change, or with situations in which he had no ability to change things. 

then morning came, and Shawn kissed him. Cory should probably have been surprised, but from the minute Shawn’s lips pressed manically to his, still moving with the final words of his breakdown, something clicked into place and it didn’t seem all that odd. Of course Shawn would kiss Cory. After the previous night, it was pretty clear to Cory that the last year was catching up with Shawn: he’d been left, and re-adopted, by his own father; his mentor and best adult friend had almost died in a motorcycle accident and then moved out of state for rehab; he’d reconnected with an estranged brother and fallen in love - for what he said was the first time - with a girl he hadn’t been able to find. They were all singularly more than Cory could have dealt with, let alone all together. 

What was surprising to Cory, though, was just how much he enjoyed kissing Shawn. At first he was just trying to be kind - to do this for Shawn, if that’s what Shawn needed. But then Shawn bit his lip and Cory’s breath escaped in the kind of growl he’d give Topanga if she’d done the same thing, and a heat blazed up from the pit of his stomach. He leaned into Shawn, feeling the weight of his chest push Shawn into the corner of the treehouse. His fingers traced the silky softness of the short hairs along Shawn’s nape, entranced by the feeling in a way he couldn’t have put into words if he’d tried. The feeling of those small hairs was so tempting, Cory had let his hands wander farther, up and down the expanse of Shawn’s back. He tried not to think about how thin Shawn was, how he could count his ribs if he’d been so inclined. Instead, Cory pulled some of Shawn’s urgency into himself and let his nails scrape down Shawn’s back with force. That time, his fingers came to rest just below the line of Shawn’s waistband, and Cory hesitated. Whatever this was, that line of denim seemed to be a proverbial Grand Canyon, the gulf between whatever panicked, desperate thing this was and something...bigger. He felt Shawn go rigid beneath him, his panting breath stopping in an instant. 

Cory looked down and Shawn’s eyes were glassy and his lips were strawberry red. Cory felt the tingle in his own lips and couldn’t help touching them - as though he needed to confirm that those were, indeed, his lips after all. He started to smile, leaning forward for another kiss when Shawn shoved him back so hard his head smacked against the floor of the treehouse and he saw stars. Shawn was out of the treehouse and half-way down the block by the time he could call out after Shawn, and by then he knew - it was too late.

Cory dragged himself down the ladder and into the house, running one hand through his hair while the other continued to absentmindedly run along his lower lip. It was early enough that things were still quiet, although if he listened hard he could hear Morgan playing quietly in her room at the top of the stairs. He thought about dragging himself upstairs, but he didn’t want to risk alerting Morgan to his presence, which would have immediately resulted in his pouring cereal she was starving for and watching cartoons she would have died without.

Instead, he threw himself down on the living room couch and piled the blankets from outside on top of him. He could feel the cold air still swirling around them, and a scent that reminded Cory distinctly of Shawn, which Cory thought maybe he was imagining. 

He’d kissed Shawn. Like, kissed kissed Shawn. Not like a few weeks ago when, caught up in excitement, he’d brashly fanned his lips over Shawn’s cheek. He felt like he should feel...differently. Like he should be having some kind of crisis of faith in himself, some kind of breakdown over what this would mean for him and Topanga, for him and Shawn, for him and who he was. 

But he knew what he was. He was Cory, and Shawn was Shawn, and as much as he knew what he should be feeling, he didn’t. He didn’t feel panicked. He didn’t feel like he was spiraling out of control. He knew there were parts of this whole situation that needed to be figured out in more detail - starting with telling Topanga, obviously - but the sum of all those parts still painted on whole picture: it felt right to kiss Shawn.

And Cory wanted to do it again.


	3. Topanga: Cory and Shawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone has always thought of Cory and Topanga as one word. But there's always Shawn, and even if no one says it - she sees him there.

The one question most people asked Topanga was how she dealt with her best friend and her boyfriend being, well, what they were.

It was a hard question to answer. How do you explain to other people that the man you love happens to have this third arm, and it’s never going to go anywhere and it came in handy and had been around so long that not only was there no hope of amputation, but you weren’t even sure you wanted it removed to begin with. Shawn had always been a part of their lives.

So much so that it almost hadn’t been their life at all, her and Cory. For the briefest time - a time so small it constantly threatened to disappear and be rewritten all together - she and Shawn had considered going out. They’d just started high school, she was finally putting her hair crimper and flowered skirts to rest - and fuck, Shawn had that adorable smile and that floppy hair and even in her most in-love moments with Cory she still couldn’t deny the magnetic charge that Shawn Hunter had. But her date with Shawn had ended with her even more in love with Cory than before, and one door was shut while another opened. She loved Shawn, and would always love Shawn, but she was in love with Cory. 

And just because Cory also happened to love Shawn, the more the merrier. There was something to them that Topanga knew she could never replicate. And really, that was the crux of the matter. When people asked their questions what they really wanted to know was: how was she not jealous? Didn’t she get jealous, not always being the most important person in Cory’s world? Because, truth be told, she wasn’t always.

Cory swore every time he was asked that Topanga came before Shawn, but when the talk stopped and it became time for actions? Well, time and time again Cory had proved that there was no difference between the two. Shawn would come before Topanga if that’s what was necessary and visa versa. So Topanga had trained herself not to be jealous, pulled the thorns off of each and every one of those roses and they bloomed. Cory needed Shawn, she needed Cory, and Shawn needed a family. If there was a way for all of them to all get what they needed, Topanga would do that for Cory. She couldn’t stand the other option - none of them getting any of what they wanted. Of what they needed. 

Topanga still had a hard time reconciling her life now versus what her life was like growing up. There were still times she was afraid she’d wake up and be back to the meditation-cushion-toting, denim-vest-wearing granola child she used to be. And then there were times when she woke up hoping against hope to be that person again, to return to a time when she didn’t know what the difference between an A and an A- was, when the entire world and the frightening concept of the ‘future’ weren’t conspiring to give her nightly panic attacks. It was their last year in high school, and while the surface Topanga was calm, beautiful, and collected, the real Topanga was the polar opposite of all of those things. When she was with Cory, and Shawn, and Eric and Angela and all her other friends, things carried on as they always had. But when she was alone, the weight of things beyond her control constricted her airways and made her palms sweat. 

Last night had been a night like that. She’d spent the day with Shawn and Cory, combing through every possible female in the yearbook looking for the ‘purse girl’ that Shawn was currently stuck on. When they hadn’t been able to find her - still, again - Shawn had looked so deflated. Like all of the light, all the buoyancy that came running into the world when he smiled simply burnt out. He’d made excuse after excuse to leave, shrugging into his leather jacket and charging into the night, insisting that nobody follow him. Which, of course, hadn’t happened. Cory had gone after him. She’d insisted Cory go after him. And, just like that, she was alone.

She had gone home and slipped silently through the door, already several hours past curfew. There was an icy stillness in her house, and she shivered at the cold night air. She’d have to insist her parents, ever the eco-conscious consumers, finally turn on the heat in the house. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Things had been incredibly tense around the house the last few weeks as her father’s company tried to decide whether or not they would need to relocate to Pittsburgh - and who from the company would need to come with them if they did decide to. Slipping off her shoes and shuffling quietly to her bedroom, Topanga shut the door and sank to the floor, the solidity of the door at her back grounding her. She took a deep breath and tried to think over the last few days in a rational, productive fashion.

Which, really, wasn’t possible. Or at least wasn’t possible right now. Shawn had been so enamored of this person he’d never seen - over a set of belongings in a purse he’d found, no less, not even an actual flesh-and-blood person - that it was frustrating to her that neither he nor Cory could see that whatever this hunt was, it wasn’t about the girl with the purse. It was about what happened without purse girl. Shawn was ready to try something he’s never tried before - monogamy. Or, at least, the kind of monogamy he saw between Cory and Topanga. Which, she could recognize, was far from any kind of normal relationship most sixteen year olds found themselves in. Which is why she wondered - was it just the monogamy with someone? Or was it something about her and Cory, and Shawn, and the history the three of them shared, that he cried for so desperately when he said that he wanted what they had?

There weren’t going to be any answers tonight. That didn’t stop Topanga’s brain from racing through all the possibilities, realistic and otherwise. She crossed to hallway in two steps, washing her face in the now early-dawn light of the bathroom, feeling the exhaustion of the night sink into her bones. There was a kernel of hurt in her heart, a small thing with sharp edges that she kept rubbing against every time she thought of that pained look on Shawn’s face. It kept reminding her that it wasn’t just Cory she cared about. Wasn’t just Cory that she was friends with. And, although she wouldn’t have hurt Shawn for the world, it was hurting him to look at her and see her happy with Cory. And she didn’t know how to fix it. 

Her bed felt extra soft, her blankets doubly warm, as she closed her eyes and reached for the restful silence of sleep. She found it waiting for her, her oldest friend of all, and was pissed as hell less than four hours later when her phone rang and wrenched her out of that quiet. 

But it was Cory on the other end, and he sounded like he really needed to talk, and she was always there for Cory. Always.


	4. Cory Tells Topanga

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for Cory to tell Topanga the truth, especially with Shawn on the line. Only one problem - Cory doesn't really know what the truth *is*.

“We have to find him, Topanga.”

“We will, Cory. But I don’t know if driving around randomly is the best way to do this.” She pulled up to the curb in front of the Matthews’ house and let the car idle. Her hands felt stiff, like they’d been glued to the steering wheel for days, not just the last few hours they’d spent looking for Shawn.

“You didn’t see his face when he ran, Topanga. He’s in one of those moods. I’m afraid he won’t come back this time.”

“...is that what you’re afraid of, Cory?” Her voice was low, her eyes trained on her lap. The weight of the silence between them filled the car.

“I don’t him to be any more hurt, Topanga. You saw him last night.”

“I did. And you saw him this morning. I’m thinking the last time you saw him might have been a bit more important. Any chance you’re finally going to tell me what happened?” 

The way she said it, it was almost like she knew. And maybe she did - not the details, but something. The more they’d driven around, the longer it was before they found Shawn, the more Cory’s thoughts raced around the past, the present, the signs he may have missed, or ignored, or zoomed past in his pursuit of Topanga.

Only now, when asked directly about it, Cory had a hard time pushing the words past his teeth. It wasn’t shame he felt. He’d experienced enough of that at various points in his life to know full well what that was like. It was more like...an unbalancing. Like he was standing on a very, very thin wire a thousand feet off the ground, and while he was balanced and ready and could wait like that forever, that’s all it would be. Waiting. Stasis. He had to move, he knew that, but to do that risked the fall - or risked moving down the wire to a future he couldn’t quite make out. 

“Shawn and I...I mean, Shawn...we kissed.” The word felt so small once he said it, as though the big bad wolf shadow puppet had been revealed to be nothing more than clasped hands and pointed index fingers. The entire world seemed to hold still, and Cory finally understood that feeling he’d read about in books - the eternity that stretches to fill up a simple pause in conversation.

“You...kissed.” It wasn’t a question. She didn’t sound angry.

In fact, she wasn’t angry. She was confused, and startled, and maybe a little irritated that things had gotten to this point without her. And hurt. She’d be lying to say that there wasn’t a part of her that was hurt. And, in the interest of true honesty, jealous. All of those feelings, and some she hadn’t identified yet, warred inside her. Apparently Cory was only picking up on one of those feelings, though: the jealousy.

“It didn’t mean anything Topanga. I mean, maybe it did to Shawn, but you know how much I love you and how much I would never, never do anyth-”

“Don’t, Cory.”

“Topanga, please, you have to believe me.”

“But I don’t.” She turned to face him full-on. “I don’t believe you when you say that it didn’t mean anything to you, only to Shawn.” Her giant doe eyes searched his, probing the depths of that innocent brown for a truth she was finally ready to shine light on. “And I’m not mad about it. I just want us all to finally be honest about what this is.”

“What this is? What is this? Because I got to be honest, Topanga - I feel like I’m still reeling like crazy and you’re not acting at all like I thought you would and we still can’t find Shawn, so I’m not entirely sure what the fuck is actually happening right now.” Cory flapped his hands around in the way he always did when his anxiety was pushing the limits of what he could handle.

Topanga shut the car off. She reached across the center console and gripped his hands in one of hers, the other one resting lightly on his cheek. 

“Cor. Cor, it’s alright. Look at me.” He focused and took a breath. “Good. Okay. There are several things happening right now, and we’re going to take them one by one yeah?” He nodded. “Good again. First thing: tell me about the kiss.”

And Cory did. Not in graphic detail, of course, but he told her about the whole night. Waking up to the sound of drunk and unsubtle Shawn sneaking into his treehouse in the wee hours of the night. The crying, and the blankets, and the pain that Shawn had laid at Cory’s feet. And then, in the morning, the kiss. The one that had started as something to comfort a hurt friend and had ended as the opening of a door Cory couldn’t close. “And then he took off, Topanga. He pushed me so hard I can still feel it. He didn’t mean to hurt me, but…” The duality of meaning hung dark beneath the phrase.

“But he did.”

“Yeah. He did.”

“Okay. Now Cory, I’m going to ask you maybe the most important question: how did you feel?”

“I just told you how much it hur-”

“Don’t be dense, Cory. I don’t mean about the shove. I mean about the kiss.”

Cory stared down at his hands, running one nail along the cuticles of the other in distraction. When he spoke, the words came slowly, mined one by one to make sure it was the right cut and clarity. “I love you. You know that. And I love Shawn. Shawn is my brother by choice. Last night, seeing him in that much pain? I can’t see him like that, Topanga.”

“I know, Cor.”

“So, I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel. I just know that I love you both and I get to keep you safe and be with you and that doesn’t hurt you, but it kills Shawn. So what do I do? How do I choose in that scenario?”

“What if you didn’t have to choose?”

Cory’s head rocketed up so fast he smacked the back of it against the window in a spot dangerously close to the same one he’d bonked that morning. “Fuck!” His hand tried to rub the pain away, but he at the same time his brain was struggling to work out what was actually happening in this conversation. “Ow. Okay, Topanga what are you talking about?”

“I said what if you didn’t have to choose?” She cleared her throat and spoke slowly. “Look, Cory. I don’t have the answer either. But I agree that I can’t stand to see Shawn hurt like that. He’s my friend, too, you know.” She hadn’t meant it to smack of that jealousy, still, but there it was. There wasn’t any way to put it out there without it sounding like that. “And I don’t know what to do either. But if it’s the choice that’s hurting all of us, maybe we just don’t have to choose.”

“But Topanga - how does that work?” The look on his face was part hope, part dread - hope that maybe there was an answer after all, one that left everyone whole and happy, and dread that there wasn’t really a way for all of them to walk away, period, no matter what they did now. She stared at him, leaned forward, grabbing both of his hands again and pulling him towards her.

Their lips met over the center console, with a tenderness that perfectly matched the occasion. Cory marvelled at the way Topanga knew how to do that - to match her kisses to the context, to give him the things he needed that he couldn’t have named himself. Her tongue parted his lips gently, and he felt one smooth hand on each side of his face, holding him in place while she probed deeped, pressed her lips to his with a pressure that was solid and familiar. He cupped the back of her head gently and breathed in that Topanga smell - like oranges, and chocolate, and something spicy. She leaned more of her weight forward, leaning into the kiss with a subtle urgency. As much as she could manage, she slid closer to him on the seat and kissed him deeply. When he tried to pull back to reposition, she wouldn’t let him, clutching his face to hers with a strength that was simultaneously desperate and sexy. He kissed her back, knotting her hair around his fist and pulling with the softest pressure. Her breath hitched, like he knew it would, and he used the momentary pause for breath to pull apart. The look in her eyes was fevered, hungry - she wanted more of him.

She was trying to distract him.

“How does this work, Topanga? If we don’t have to chose, how does this work?”

“Cory, I -”

“No kissing distractions!” She’d been leaning forward, ready for another kiss-induced change of topic, but he literally threw his hand up in her face. “I need to figure this out, Topanga.”

She took a deep breath and sat back. He was right. The last 36 hours had brought them to an impasse none of them had seen coming. They had to have a plan, or they were truly wandering blind into new territory. “I don’t know, Cory. I don’t know how it all works. But you love me, right?”

“Puh. You know I love you more than anything.”

“More than anything...except maybe Shawn.”

Silence for a long time and then. “Yeah. Except maybe Shawn.”

Topanga nodded and squared her shoulders. This was it: the moment of decision. Because, really, the decision was hers. It wasn’t Cory’s, and it wasn’t Shawn’s (at least not yet). It was her’s, and if she made it, it would be done. They would start...something else, something new to all of them, and there wouldn’t be a way to undo it. They were Cory and Shawn and Topanga, and their orbits around each other was a delicate balance. If it imploded? And then the look on Shawn’s face throughout the years filled her vision. 

Shawn, doing that stupid handshake with Cory as kids, his clothes two sizes too big and his smile unrestrained. Shawn, duffle bag in hand, confused why his own dad doesn’t want to come home. Shawn sitting over Mr. Turner’s bed, holding the almost-dead-man’s hand and crying to God for maybe the first time in his life. Shawn’s face last night as he’d stalked away from them, a resolute aloofness barely covering the internal anguish he was feeling. And she knew. She knew she didn’t really have much of a choice, either.

“Well. I love you. And I love Shawn, too. So maybe we don’t have to have all the answers right now. Maybe if you love him, and I love him, and we ask him to take the chance and love us back?”

“Shawn already loves us. You know that.”

“Well. Maybe it’s about time we all start showing each other how we feel.” Topanga started the car. Time to keep searching.


	5. Shawn is Confused, Which Makes Him Act Like an Asshole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shawn isn't good at a whole lot of things. But he's really, really good at making bad decisions at the worst possible time.

Shawn had spent his entire life getting really, really good at running away from things. When he was young - really young, still living in Oklahoma young - he'd taken off into the woods behind the trailer park. When his parents would fight, he'd play this game where he'd stand on the edge of the forest, take a deep breath, and run as far as he could before the burn in his chest got so bad he was forced to stop. He'd gotten pretty good at it, making it almost as far as the big clearing few trailer-lengths down, but then one time he accidentally pushed too hard and passed out. When he woke up again it was night out, and his dad had beat his ass raw when he came back. 

When he was older and in Philadelphia, Shawn loved the park down the street from the Matthews’ house. Specifically, he loved curling up under the wooden bench, looking at the stars through the slats and pretending he was anywhere but where he was - sometimes below decks on a pirate ship, sometimes in jail like one of his uncles. He'd fall asleep like that, curled in on himself, sleeping to the sound of clinking swing chains and creaking rocker toys. He'd wake to the sounds of kids walking by him on the way to school, bolting to get himself to class on time. Of course, he'd also loved staying in the treehouse and bumming a ride with Cory.

And now? Now that he was finally living somewhere else? He was back in the trailer park, skulking between the trailers, swinging on the one sad tire swing in the mowed lot they called a playground. It was the one place he was fairly certain no one would look for him. He needed to be alone. To think about what just happened. His hands were shaking, mostly from cold, and Shawn shoved them deeper in his pockets as he walked. 

He had kissed his best friend. And his best friend had definitely kissed him back. What did that mean? Shawn had been pretty sure for a while that his sexual orientation was…flexible. But still. His sexual orientation didn't include Cory. Couldn't include Cory. Cory was his best friend and the person who'd known him the longest. The potential for something going wrong, terribly wrong, was too big. 

But.

There was still that huge, enormous ‘but’ Shawn was having a hard time seeing around. Cory had kissed him back. And Shawn knew kissing. That had been real, hot, urgent want in Cory’s hands. Shawn felt an ache at the memory of Cory’s fingers just below his waistband. Shawn felt the urge to dig his fingers into Cory's dense curls and breathe in his unmistakably scent - mint and musk and something a little chocolatey. It was a smell that made Shawn want to taste Cory. To plant a soft kiss right at the spot where neck met jaw. 

Shawn shook his head.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” He shouted into the wind until his throat was sore. This was such a tempting, dangerous thought path to go down. Shawn couldn't indulge it. Not to mention, Cory had Topanga, anyway. Whatever response Cory had given Shawn, the love between Cory and Topanga was something Shawn couldn't compete with. Cory had said so several times. That thought reminded him of what had brought on the tree house incident to begin with, and he walked faster, desperate to escape the sick feeling in his stomach. 

The sadness of last night had definitely dulled, but it hadn't yet disappeared completely. The walking helped. Not thinking about Cory, or Topanga, or coryandtopanga, also helped. But there was one failsafe technique that always made him feel better that he hadn't tried yet. Shawn smiled for the first time in what felt like days, turned on his heel, and walked back the way he'd came. 

Before purse girl, it had been a while since he'd actively tried to pick up somebody. Not that he had to work very hard, to be honest. What wasn't helping was the fact that it was still fairly early in the day, and Shawn didn't much feel like waiting. Luckily the mall was on the bus line and guaranteed to have enough people that he'd be able to find someone to pass the time with. As luck would have it, it only took fifteen feet into the mall and twenty minutes of his time before he and a short redhead named Cynthia were headed towards her car. Before they were half way the parking lot, he stopped, draped an arm around her shoulder, and gave her a long, slow kiss. 

Shawn felt doubly lucky when Cynthia happened to have a half-finished thirty pack of beer in her car, AND was over twenty- one. He didn't have any money, but after he'd tongued her clit for a solid twenty minutes she didn't seem to mind getting him wasted. After a first stop at the liquor store they drove around while he drank, taking surreptitious but stupid shots whenever the coast was clear. He lost track of the hours, but eventually they stopped and ate food he didn't remember buying before having messy, drunken, awkward sex one last time in the back seat. He thought he remembered to put his pants on before he passed out, but when he woke up hours later, that turned out not to be the case. 

He was lying in his underwear on the back seat, Cynthia asleep on top of him. And someone was knocking on the window above his head. Someone with dense curly hair and big, brown eyes. 

In flashes, bits of it came back to Shawn. His craving for Chubbies. His near-death fall down the stairs when he went to grab food for he and Cynthia. Directing Cynthia to a place to park so they could eat. A place that just happened to be just a few doors down from the Matthews’, across the street from his old playground haunt. 

Shawn had never hated himself more.


	6. Cory: Shawn and Topanga (Topanga and Shawn?)

Stupid Shawn. Stupid, stupid Shawn and his stupid penis making stupid decisions on his behalf. Normally, Cory would have had to tamp down the urge to laugh. Here was his best friend, sans pants, passed out in the back seat of a car with a decently pretty redhead and a half-eaten Chubby’s burger still clutched in his hand. But this wasn’t ‘normally’, and he’d been up for damn near two days straight now, between the night in the treehouse and the ensuing all-day search for Shawn. Shawn, who had kissed him, who had taken his finger out of the dam, and then just ran. 

Cory knocked on the window again, harder this time, the pain in his knuckles a welcomed focal point for the storms of anger and sadness that were roiling in combat in his stomach. “The fuck?” he heard the redhead mumble as Shawn sat up. Somehow he managed to maneuver his way out from underneath the girl before he cracked open the back door. He yelped at the cold and pulled it shut immediately, looking up at Cory with his giant puppy-dog eyes.

Cory didn’t really give a shit anymore.

“We’ve been looking for you all night. Meet us down there in ten - preferably with your pants on.” Cory shouted through the closed window, pointing down the street towards their childhood park. Shawn nodded his head and said something to the redhead, who looked confused but began to put her shirt on anyway. Cory stalked off, Topanga trailing behind him. She hadn’t said anything, but given the look on Cory’s face, she didn’t think she needed to. She took a seat on the only working swing and watched as Cory stalked circles around the blacktop, waiting for Shawn. Who barely stepped past the fence entrance to the park before getting an earful from Cory.

“Who the hell was that, Shawn? You just take off and don’t tell us where you are and we find you like THAT?! With HER?! I don’t even know who she IS and I’m livid. I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT BE DEAD, SHAWN. What the fuck?! We’ve been looking for you all night, and that’s where you are? You had us so worried, man!”

“I know, Cor. I’m sorry.” Shawn shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked at something invisible on the ground. Cory, who still hadn’t stopped watching, pulled up short. There was a look of almost comedic shock on his face.

Cory had spent a lot of time being Shawn’s friend. Which meant that he’d spent a lot of that time hearing apologies. But he’d never heard his friend sound so, well, sorry before. So contrite. So Cory looked at him. Really looked. And saw a scared, shy, kid from Oklahoma who was on the brink of losing something he didn’t even know he’d managed to create; a glass sculpture of a frightened rabbit, and Cory felt himself deflate. He was angry at Shawn. But it was more than that. He was hurt by Shawn. By things he felt Shawn owed him - feelings he’d already imagined after the kiss that changed them all. That wasn’t fair, though, and Cory knew it. He’d spent all day talking to Topanga about the three of them and how and if it could all work. Shawn hadn’t even known there was an “it” to make work.

“You’re sorry?” Shawn nodded. Cory nodded. He crossed to a bench next to where Shawn was standing and sat, looking up at him. “What are you sorry for, Shawn?”

Shawn looked taken aback by the question. “Um, for running out on you. And for you guys having to look all night for me. For worrying you.”

“But not for kissing me?” Silence seemed to swell between them all, and Cory was just about to ask again when Shawn spoke. His voice was quiet enough to be swallowed by the wind, but to Cory and Topanga he may as well have been talking into a megaphone.

“I’m not sorry for kissing you, Cory. I could never, ever be sorry for that. But maybe I’m sorry for not being sorry.” His eyes caught Topanga’s, and her breath hitched. 

“We’re always going to look for you, you know” Topanga said from the swing. 

“And we’re always going to be worried about you,” Cory said quietly, his eyes still trained on Shawn with a mixture of irritation and fascination. “Why the hell did you run, Shawn?”

Shawn looked back and forth between his best friend, and his best friend’s girl, and he wanted to ground his toe into the grass, and then the dirt, and then the rock of the Earth itself if it meant he didn’t have to look at their faces while they had this conversation. “I panicked.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Cory’s tone was more sardonic than anything Shawn had ever heard him say. 

“Look, Cor, I’m sorry. But I’m so fucked up in the head right now, that when...everything happened, the Chet Hunter genes took over and I just bolted. I can’t bring you guys into all of my mess. It’s senior year!” he threw his arms wide, gesturing at the park around them like it was the entire world, not just a few hundred square feet in suburban Philly. “You’ve both got so much to worry about that’s not me and this stupid purse girl!”

“It’s not about her.” Topanga said. “It’s about us. About the two of you.”

“I don’t have anything to worry about that isn’t you and Topanga, Shawn,” Cory said quietly, refusing to make eye contact. “I don’t have much in my life that’s not you and Topanga.”

“Whatever, Cory. You’ve got your parents. And your brother. And your house, and your life, and a million other things that have nothing to do with me, and that I’ll never have.”

“Who says you’ll never have them?” Topanga asked, her eyes flashing. She’d left the swings and joined them at the benches, positioning herself between him and Cory and turning their straight line of communication into a triangle. Shawn just shrugged.

“My dad. Mr. Turner. Purse girl. The whole universe seems to be on the same page, why should I bother reading a different book?” And the resignation in his voice broke them all.

Topanga marched towards Shawn defiantly. Before she could think too much about it, before the look of confusion on his face could blossom into action, she grabbed him by the lapels of his leather jacket and kissed him. 

At first it was nothing more than the smashing together of faces, but Shawn was good at what he did, and Topanga was no slouch either, so both of them relaxed into the kiss as Cory watched.

Cory watched his best friend’s long, pale fingers tangle into the hair of his first biggest love. He watched as her lips parted slightly and she tilted her chin up, giving Shawn access to her jaw line and the tender spot right below her ear. He watched as Shawn made his way down her neck, then back up to her mouth, her full lips covering him in a way that seemed more than complete, that seemed on the verge of consuming him entirely. And Cory felt his cock twitch against the inside of his jeans, felt the tips of his fingers itching to work through the baby hairs on Shawn’s neck while at the same time pressing his own lips against Topanga’s collarbone. 

Seconds stretched to minutes stretched to hours stretched to days, and yet in no time at all Shawn was pulling away, pushing Topanga back to arms’ length and looking back and forth between her and Cory, his eyes hazy with lust and begging for answers. Cory wasn’t quick enough, and a little chuckle escaped him.

Lightening fast, both Shawn and Topanga were staring at him. Topanga crooked an eyebrow? “Cory?”

Shawn looked panicked. He seemed torn between putting his dukes up to fight off Cory and just sitting down on the dirt and playing dead like some kind of wild animal. “Oh my god Cory oh my god oh my god I’m so sorry but she oh my God Topanga but you and I’m so sorry and” Topanga set a finger to his lips and his babbling quieted. Topanga gave him a swift nod of the head, encouraging him to stay quiet, before she walked back to Cory and slipped her hand in his. She looked at him, expectantly - whatever this new thing was about to be, Cory was going to have to be the ringleader. The lodestone. The glue.

Cory took her hand and a grin broke across his face. He faced Shawn and shrugged.

“We love you, Shawn. Always have. Always will. So…?”


	7. Shawn Gets Asked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between life altering questions and lots of kissing, one fact remains: the Matthews boys will always hold Braveheart in the highest regard.

Topanga knows it's the exact inappropriate reaction, but she can't help it. She snorts. “Oh my God, Cory, did you just ask Shawn to date us by quoting Braveheart?”

Cory looked down at her, affronted. “It's one of the greatest love stories of all time, thank you very much.”

“Only a Matthews boy would think that.”

“Every Matthews boy does think that.”

Shawn coughed quietly, feeling dangerously lightheaded. “Not to interrupt this vitally important debate, but,” he gulped, “did you say ‘date us’? 

A giant smile cracked Topanga’s face. Cory’s smile was smaller, more tentative, but so endearing that Shawn was overcome with the desire to plant the softest kiss right at the corner of his best friend's mouth. He took a step towards Cory and ran his thumb along his lower lip instead. “And how exactly does that work, Cor?”

“I don't know, Shawnie.” The trusting confusion in Cory’s eyes was so tender Shawn felt an important center of gravity shift inside him. Shawn felt Topanga close the gap, standing close enough he could feel the heat of her. The comforting solidity. 

“But we want to figure it out. Together.” Topanga slipped one hand into Shawn’s, and the other into Cory’s. She squeezed, gently, urging them to look at her and break whatever stream of silent communication they were both drowning in. After a beat, Cory looked away. Two seconds later, Shawn managed to pull his eyes from Cory. “We need to talk. All of us. Obviously, Shawn’s trailer isn't really going to work.” Shawn tried and failed not to feel embarrassed. “Cory?”

“It's Sunday, my parents will be at church. But Eric won't be.”

“Uh-uh. No way are we…talking anywhere near Eric.”

“Alright. We'll go to my house then. My parents have some brunch meeting with my dad's new client. They won't be home for a couple hours at least.”

Shawn nodded. “Cool. Let's go.” He turned and marched quickly towards Cory’s car. It wasn't a long walk, but Shawn was desperate to move. He felt like he had electricity under his skin and no matter how hard he tried he couldn't get dateusdateusdateus to stop running through his mind on a loop. He made it half a dozen steps before Cory caught up to him. 

“Woah, Shawnie. Easy.” He slipped an arm around Shawn’s neck and exerted the smallest bit of pressure, desperate to get him to slow down. He'd practically sprinted to the car the moment they'd decided to go to Topanga’s. From any other person's perspective, it'd look like a harmless gesture of friendship. But given the last twenty-four hours, the warmth and weight of Cory’s arm, and the husky scratch of Cory’s voice when he whispered “you can't get away from me that easily, Shawn”, it feels like a whole hell of a lot more. 

The fifteen minute drive to Topanga’s house had never felt so long.

***

Topanga could count on one hand the number of times the boys had been to her house over the years, so it felt strange to have both of the boys there now. For this conversation. 

Shawn was sitting at her desk, his eyes glued to his hands and his leg bouncing up and down at an intense pace. Cory was sitting cross-legged on Topanga’s bed just staring at Shawn. She began to feel trapped all of a sudden, the silence between them feeling much heavier now that they'd moved inside. Right, so, time to change that, then. 

She stepped forward, forcing her hands to her side and taking a deep breath. “Shawn, Cory is in love with you.” Both sets of deep brown eyes flashed to her. “Sorry. I probably shouldn't have been the one to tell you that. But it seemed as good a place to start as any.”

Shawn looks at Cory and his legs stills. “Is that true, Cor?”

Cory nods and has to clear his throat a couple times before his voice works. “Yeah, Shawn. It's true. I'm in love with you.”

“I love you guys too but -”

“No, Shawn. Don't do that. Don't misunderstand on purpose because you're scared.” Topanga’s voice was sharp and cold. Whatever this thing was going to be, it was so fragile she knew any one of them could break it without realizing. 

“I'm in love with you,” Cory said again, his eyes drilling into Shawn’s. 

“Why?” There it was. Barely a whisper and yet it rocked through the bedrock of their relationship. Shawn didn't understand, Cory felt guilty that he hadn't made it clear, and Topanga felt - of course - that she could figure it all out with a pro/con list and their promise to listen to her. 

Cory stood up and ran his hands through his hair, opening and closing his mouth several times. He couldn't find the right order of all the words he needed to say to make Shawn understand how and why Cory couldn't be without them both. 

“Show him, Cory.” He looked at Topanga, confused, she looked back and forth between the two of them and pushed her chin towards Shawn. “You can't find the words. So show him. Show him why.”

Topanga was right. Topanga was always right.

The second time Shawn and Cory kissed, it was Cory doing the kissing. Before Shawn could understand what was about to happen, Cory had crossed Topanga’s room and shoved his hands deep into the boy’s hair, tilting his head back and pressing his mouth firmly to Shawn’s.

Shawn felt stiff at first, frozen in a heady blend of surprise and fear. But Cory kept a consistent pressure on Shawn, gently sucking at his bottom lip until Shawn’s mouth opened just enough for Cory to press a warm, wet kiss deep into the back of Shawn’s throat. Shawn’s breath hitched in surprise, and Cory felt his skin prickle at the sound. He pulled back and looked at Shawn’s swollen lips and wary expression. He still wasn’t getting it. Time to try and third time.

Removing his hands from Shawn’s hair, Cory pressed one palm firmly against each side of Shawn’s face. He took a deep breath and allowed himself to bring up all the love, dedication, humor, and compassion the two of them had ever shared, letting the memories and feelings of having Shawnie in his life overwhelm him. There wasn’t any way to make Shawn feel it unless Cory was going to feel it, too. 

He pressed his lips to Shawn’s forehead. To each eyelid, and the crest of each cheekbone. He pressed light kisses to the corner of each mouth before finally pressing his lips to Shawn’s for a third time. Not rushed, and not forced, but slow and reassuring and…

...really, really fucking hot. Shawn felt a ball of heat begin to gather at the base of his spine, the muscles in his thighs and hands clenching as Cory’s hands left the side of his face and came to his back, pulling Shawn in close and pressing their bodies together. Shawn uncurled his fists and brought them tentatively to the back of Cory’s head, pressing against the thick mass of curls he found there. Gently, he began to tease the curls, wrapping them around his fingers and pulling gently in time with the languid passes of Cory’s tongue. He felt Cory moan against his mouth, and from across the room Topanga’s voice was low and breathy. 

“It drives him nuts if you play with his curls.”

It was enough. Enough to pull him out of his reverie with Cory. Shawn pulled away and looked at Topanga. She had her back against the door, but watched them with a kind of predatory intentness. Her cheeks were flushed and she was clearly breathing harder, her eyes bright with lust, a look Shawn knew well in women. “You’re okay with this?” he managed to ask, his chest tight.

“Oh, very much so,” Topanga answered. “We are all very much okay with this.”

“Well with this, yeah,” Shawn said, looking down at Cory, who had moved to pressing soft kisses to the underside of Shawn’s jaw. “Cor, come on.” He pushed Cory away and started to pace. Cory took up Shawn’s old spot in the desk chair. “What are we doing here, guys?”

“We were kissing,” Cory sulked.

Shawn shot him a look. 

“Like I said in the park, we don’t have any answers either, Shawn.” Topanga left her spot at the door and took a spot on the bed next to Cory. “But Cory told me what happened between you guys in the treehouse. And obviously this,” she gestured between the three of them “is a pretty big deal in all of our lives. So he and I were - are - willing to give this a try.”

“Give what a try?!”

“Us, Shawnie. The three of us. Together. The Three Musketeers we’ve always been, only with more kissing. Definitely more kissing.”

“We can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re Topanga and Cory!” he yelled.

“And you’re Cory and Shawn!” she yelled back. Shawn stopped pacing and looked at them both. 

His best friend. His two best friends. Who were so completely and disgustingly in love with each other, in a way that Shawn hadn’t thought he was ever going to have. And god damn it, he just loved them both so much it hurt too much to look right at them. Cory’s earnest smile and Topanga’s big baby eyes and Shawn felt like he might just crack from the center out. And now they were looking at him, with that big ball of hope and expectations being thrown right at Shawn and, well, Shawn wasn’t good at catching.

But he couldn’t run anymore.

“I need to think about this,” he said quietly. He could see Cory deflate on the bed,and Topanga reached out and grabbed his hand. 

“We get that,” she said. “We’ve already thought, but this is still being sprung on you.”

“You have to come back, Shawnie. If you go away to think, you have to promise to actually come back here so we can talk about it. Even if the answer is no, do you promise?”

The fact that Cory even had to ask broke Shawn’s heart. But not as completely as the knowledge that, if Cory weren’t making Shawn promise, there was a chance he actually would never come back. Never bring it up again. Shawn nodded.

He had his hand on the front door when Topanga called his name. She ran down the stairs, pulling up just short of slamming him into the front door. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, breathless and excited and desperate. It was over before Shawn could kiss back, and he felt her breath on his ear. “I love you too. I need you to know that. I know it’s always you and Cory, but I love you too and I just want you to remember that when you’re thinking, okay. It’s the three of us. Always.”

She ran back upstairs and left Shawn standing in the foyer.


	8. Remember the Superbowl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cory loves Shawn. Cory loves Topanga. But Shawn and Topanga?

Shawn was out the door and walking before he'd even thought about where he was going. The neighborhood surrounding Topanga’s was one of the wealthier ones in the city, nothing but wide, quiet streets and Victorian-looking lampposts. Half way down the block, Shawn decided to just let his feet keep going in any direction that was away.

Away from the two most important people in his life offering him...what, exactly. Shawn shook his head and tried to back up the speed train of his thoughts. Back before the car, before the redhead, before the kiss. Back to the last moment Shawn was absolutely, 100% confident in a decision he was making. It didn’t happen often, and remembering the times it had was always a solidifying exercise for him. The only thing he could think of was last year, when his father had been hired as the janitor at school and he’d needed to come to terms really quickly with the fact that his classmates could be huge assholes - and so could he. He’d left that day, mopping up spilled milk while his father watched proudly - convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was proud to be a Hunter, and that there was more to him than the money he did or didn’t have. 

That was a tough time for Shawn. His mother had just come back into town, his father was working to make a legitimate attempt at a career that would keep him in town around his family. And Cory had been there for every minute of it, just like Cory always was. He’d tracked down Shawn’s mother, gotten them to have the conversation that finally led to Shawn having a family again, for a while at least.

That’s not fair, a voice in Shawn’s head said. That assumes you didn’t have a family before that. That the Matthews, that Cory, hasn’t always been your family. And Shawn knew that voice was right. He’d gotten the shit end of the stick in the lottery of families, but that didn’t mean he had never known what it was to have a brother. To have a mother, even if not a blood one, that looked out for you, and tried to hold you to a curfew, and yelled at you to wear a coat when it was cold out. Even Topanga had always acted like a sister to him. No, not a sister. But...something. Something more than a friend, less than family, and such a vital piece to this whole puzzle that not knowing how she fit was beginning to drive him nuts. 

Shawn stopped walking. It had started to feel suspiciously like running away, and even with as bad as Shawn was at emotions, he knew that avoiding them didn’t ever make them better. 

So that was it. It was Topanga. The revelation didn’t really surprise him, mostly because it didn’t really feel like much a revelation. Sure, there was a whole lot of shit he had to work out between him and Cory, a whole universe that had opened beneath their feet when they’d kissed in the treehouse. But he loved Cory. He’d do anything for Cory. And Cory had already done everything for him. Given him every good thing he could think back on having experienced in his life in Philadelphia. 

The one thing he couldn’t do, wouldn’t let himself do, was also the thing most likely to happen: he couldn’t break Cory. Couldn’t hurt him, couldn’t take that dimpled, hopeful smile and turn it into something dark. Or, worse yet, turn it off completely. So he wasn’t just going to do...this. He couldn’t just do this. He needed to talk to Cory and Topanga, and Shawn wasn’t good at talking. Especially about feelings.

“Fuck it,” he said under his breath. This was too important. They were too important. 

But he couldn’t talk to them today. It was late enough in the day that Cory’s parents would be back from Mass and he’d be expected to have dinner with them. Shawn had a standing invitation to their table, but tonight that just was not going to happen. But...Shawn checked his watch and realized that Topanga hadn’t said when her parents were coming back. And suddenly Shawn knew that if he didn’t talk to her today, if he didn’t close this door forever or walk through it now, it wasn’t going to be there anymore come Monday. He picked up his pace and walked back the way he came. He and Topanga were going to put the puzzle together, tonight, now, and whatever picture it made, they’d deal with.

**

“Shawn? What are you doing here?”

“We need to talk. Are your parents back yet?”

She shook her head, and Shawn didn’t wait for further invitation. He brushed past her and ran up the stairs to her room, pacing nervously until she entered and closed the door behind him. She looked at him expectantly, eyes playful. “Okay, Shawn. Let’s talk.”

“Do you love me?” He’d stopped pacing and leveled a dark look at her. The air in the room seemed to still, and the playfulness left Topanga’s eyes, replaced with a violent ernesty. 

“Yes.”

“Are you in love with me?”

“I...don’t know. No, not yet. But I could be. Cory loves you.”

“I don’t care about Cory.” She guffawed at him, and even had to crack the smallest smile. Some of the tension between them seemed to shrink. “You know what I mean. I know how Cory feels. And know how I feel about Cory. But this is about you and me. Or, it needs to be if we’re going to make all of this work.”

Topanga sank to the bed and patted the mattress next to her. Shawn sat precariously, like a scared bird ready to bolt at the faintest breeze. “Look, Shawn.” She took one of his hands in hers, ignoring how he started like he’d been burned. She just used her other hand to trace gentle paths along the back of his hand, slow circles and zigzags that were surprisingly comforting. “I know this is weird. Believe me, it’s not any less weird for me. But it’s also…”

“Not weird at all?”

“Yeah. I mean, the kissing part, that was kind of weird.” Her voice dropped and for the first time since they’d sat down, Topanga couldn’t look Shawn in the eye. “But also really hot.” 

Shawn blushed. “Um, thanks.”

Topanga looked up at him through her lashes and smiled. “You’re welcome.” They both laughed.

“I need this to work, Topanga. I can’t…” Shawn’s breath caught. “I can’t do this if it’s not going to work.”

“So you need me to promise me that it’s always going to work? And if I can’t do that, you’re out?”

Hearing it put back to him like that made Shawn hesitate. Obviously that wasn’t something he could ask of her or Cory. Wasn’t something she could guarantee. He shook his head. “No, that’s not - I don’t know how to say this. I’m fucking terrified right now, Topanga. It’s like I’m standing on that fucking billboard again, trying to get those football tickets, and everything in the world is the eskimo and this time if I don’t do it right, it’s not that I fail Feeny’s class. It’s that everything that’s good in my life won’t be IN my life anymore.”

“But you made it to the Superbowl, Shawn. You got that A from Feeny, it all worked out.”

“Yeah! And it fucking sucked! It was so hard, and I got so cold, and missed Thanksgiving that year.”

“But it felt really great, right? To hold that sign and know we could all see you?”

Shawn let his mind wander back to that day, to the oppressive crowd and noise around him, the way his arms ached holding up that sign all day, the one that read “Hey Feeny. Nothing is Impossible”, the inner satisfaction that had left him glowing for days afterwards, knowing he’d been given a task and, contrary to everyone’s popular belief, hadn’t fucked it up and and, instead, had completed it with flying colors. He felt that same reassured smile on his face now. “Yeah. It felt amazing.”

Topanga just looked at him, letting the silence fill the room until his brain managed to put the parts of the metaphor together. “Ah. I see what you did there. Despite how scary and difficult this might be, it’s worth the ‘fucking amazing’ at the end, right?”

“Your words, not mine.”

Shawn nodded and Topanga leaned into him, letting her lips land lightly on his. She framed each side of his face with her hands, not moving, not deepening or quickening the kiss, but just staying there, her lips pressed to his. The choice was his. It was always his.

He brushed a hand against her hip and shifted his body closer, tilting his head to the side and running his tongue lightly across Topanga’s full bottom lip. He heard her breath catch, so he did it again, and then a third time, this time letting his tongue caress the inside of her mouth as well. He felt her smile against his lips, and she moved her hands from his face to his hair, wrapping the longer strands around fingers in a way that mimicked the earlier lines she’d been tracing on the back of his hands. Whatever else might have been going on, Shawn adored the way Topanga touched him. They stayed that way, wrapped up in the warmth of each other, until they heard the front door to Topanga’s house open and shut. Her parents were home and, from the sound of their conversation, already at each others throats.

“I should go,” Shawn said, resting his forehead against Topanga’s shoulders.

“Yeah, probably.”

“What now, Topanga?”

“Well. You love Cory. I love Cory. That’s off the table. I think it’s safe to say that Cory is in love with both of us. So I guess it just comes down to…” she gestured at the small bit of space between them.

And there it was. Shawn loved Topanga, and Topanga loved Shawn, but not in the same way that they loved Cory.

“I want this.” It was all Shawn could think to say. He was so scared, so terrified to wake up tomorrow and realize that he didn’t have any of it anymore, that he’d let his desire to be loved so badly be the thing that ended up leaving him all alone. But Topanga was still sitting there. And Cory...Cory had said he loved Shawn. And Shawn knew what that meant for Cory: it meant taking care of him. It meant making sure that Shawn was happy, was safe, knew that there was someone out there looking out for him. If that’s what love meant between the three of them - and Shawn hadn’t been given a better example by anyone else in his life - then he could do that. He could love Topanga.

“Me too. And you know what that means?”

Shawn shook his head. “What?”

“Tomorrow we tell Cory.”

“He’s going to do that jumping, hand-waving thing, isn’t he?”

“Most likely.”

“He looks like such a dork when he does that.”

“He does. We love him anyway.”

The ‘we’ brought a lump to his throat. “Yeah. We do.”

“Come on, Shawnie. I’ll walk you out.” Shawn smiled mischievously, glancing behind Topanga to the window by her desk.

“Nah, it’s cool babe. I’ll see myself out.” She looked at the window, and then back at Shawn, cocking an eyebrow in silent question. He just pecked her on the cheek, walked to the window, and slid it open silently. “Trust me. It’s the Hunter specialty.” He swung one leg over the sill and balanced, looking at her. She smiled at him.

“If you say so, Shawn, I trust you.”

The words had weight, and Shawn let them settle on his shoulders as he blew her a kiss and swiped at the tree branch closest to the house.

By the time his feet hit the ground, he was grinning.


	9. Cory's Big Painful Bubble of Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cory can't sleep after all the drama, but he's not all THAT sad about it.

Way earlier than he would have liked, the sun poured through Cory’s bedroom curtains and he felt himself waking up. He resisted with everything he had; his dream had been amazing, and his dick was sitting warm and heavy against his thigh.

He sat on the bed in Topanga’s room and watched as his two best friends embraced each other. Shawn’s hands tangled in the long, blonde hair as she ran along his lower lip before sucking gently. Shawn growled a little, and Topanga smiled against his lips. Cory felt his cock twitch.

The corners of Cory’s mouth turned up as he took his cock in hand, stroking gently as it felt it harden, his balls aching slightly.

Shawn pulled back and stared at Topanga with a clear, painful lust in his eyes. For the briefest second, his eyes scanned down to her chest and she instinctively pressed forward. Cory could see her nipples, hard through her shirt, and felt the briefest flash of envy. He knew how good those heavy breasts felt in his hands, the way her nipples felt pressed between his lips. 

Feeling her chest pressed against his, Shawn pressed Topanga back, walking in small steps until she was pressed up against the door, his thigh wedged between hers. Cory knew how wet she’d feel, knew that Shawn would be able to feel the heat through his jeans. Shawn pressed Topanga’s hands above her head, and Cory palmed his ridged cock through the rough denim. He made a small whining noise, his view now mostly obscured by Shawn, pressed up against Topanga, his lips pressing small kisses along her jaw and his jeans riding deliciously low on his hips. He stopped kissing just long enough to toss a wicked smile over his shoulder at Cory. 

“I think he’s getting lonely, Topanga.”

“Aw, now, we can’t have that.” Her voice was low, almost a whisper, but the hunger in her eyes filled Cory’s ears with white noise. He swore his vision blurred as Topanga dragged her arms down the door and through Shawn’s hair one more time before pressing him away gently, walking slowly across the room to Cory. As she did, she unbuttoned and stepped out of her pants, crossing her arms and pulling her t-shirt over her head, dropping both in Shawn’s path has he trailed along behind her, one hand hovering at her hip while his eyes carved paths of heat up and down her spine. 

Cory uncrossed his legs just in time for Topanga to press herself between them, nudging his thighs further apart as she raked her nails down the front of his shirt. He leaned back on his elbows, her her hair fell around them like a sheer golden curtain. She kissed him, hard, and he kissed back, nibbling gently on her lower lip before sucking on her top one. She let out a gentle hiss and it took Cory’s brain a second to register the sound of a smack filling the room. His eyes shot up to Shawn, who was rubbing one side of Topanga’s ass with the flat of his hand, the skin red and hot-looking beneath his fingers. His eyes were focused on Cory, though, and Shawn smirked as the other hand dusted it’s way down Topanga’s spine, around the crest of her ass, and settled with his fingers pushing aside the edge of her panties, teasing her clit. 

Topanga stopped kissing her way down Cory’s neck and gasped, leaning her forehead into Cory’s collarbone and moaning.

“She like’s it soft. Sweet, just like she is.” The words were out before Cory could stop them. Topanga bit at his chest lightly, and Shawn’s smile spread across his face. Cory couldn’t see what Shawn was doing, but whatever it was, he felt Topanga’s breath quicken against his skin.

“Oh fuck, Shawn,” Cory said, and Topanga giggled.

“Fucking right,” she shifted her hips backwards, resuming her kisses as her body rocked slightly with the motions of Shawn’s fingers. She kissed lower, scooting herself further back as she kissed her way down the line of dark hair on Cory’s stomach. “Um, guys?” The angle was wrong, and she’d need to drop to her knees to keep the party going.

Shawn and Cory locked eyes, and Shawn shrugged, his eyes flashing wickedly as he kept his face calm. Cory looked at Topanga and licked his lips, reaching out to run a thumb along her lower lip. She bit it gently and finished scooting her way down Cory’s body, coming to rest between his thighs. She pressed a gentle kiss to the inside of this thigh and Cory’s breath shuddered. He head Shawn’s quick intake of breath as he sunk down on his knees behind Topanga. Cory could see her wetness glistening off Shawn’s fingers as he sat up on his knees behind her and brought his fingers back to her aching clit. She ground her ass against his touch as she kissed her way up Cory’s cock, small kisses that landed lightly and almost tickled. Almost.

Slowly, Topanga took the head of Cory’s cock into her mouth and sucked. Cory wrapped her hair in his hand and just waited, not pressing, but pulling slightly so there was a constant pressure against the back of her head. They’d been doing this - and only this - for years now, so Cory knew what would work for both of them. What he hadn’t counted on was the electricity that ran through him when he locked eyes with Shawn, losing himself in those big pools of brown that seemed at once infinite and entirely singular. 

He arched his back as Topanga wrapped her hand around the base of him, taking him in her mouth until her lips met her closed fist. Working in rhythm, she moaned softly as Shawn continued his slow, dedicated attention to the most delicious part of her. Cory let out a ragged breath as Topanga swirled her tongue around the tip of him, lapping up what precome had already appeared. He was going to come and she’d swallow every last drop. Topanga was a excellent at everything she attempted, and giving head was no different.

As Cory felt the cold chills race along his entire body, he knew he was close. He felt Topanga’s enthusiasm grow as she reached the brink of her own orgasm, and then Shawn was there. He’d managed to sit up and lean forward enough that he had one hand inside Topanga and another gripping firmly into Cory’s knee. Not wanting to jostle Topanga too much, he pushed himself onto his hands slowly and strained his neck forward as far as he could, seeking the soft lips of his best friend as his girlfriend kept her plump lips wrapped firmly around him…

...Cory came hard and fast, holding tightly to the dream, to that last moment when Shawn’s lips had finally crashed against him, firm and resolute and far softer than they had any right to be. Shawn’s kiss had been gruff and pressing and, fittingly enough, coincided with both dream and real-life orgasams. The dream was sifting through Cory’s fingers, though, and were gone completely when his mom knocked on the door and reminded him he had twenty minutes to get to school, less than that if he was going to pick up Shawn on the way.

Cory didn’t pick up Shawn, and made it to class seconds before the bell rang. Looks like he was the only one concerned, though, as neither Shawn nor Topanga were there. He wasn’t surprised that Shawn was gone, but Topanga had been angling for perfect attendance her senior year since she’d come out of the womb. Cory’s stomach did a nervous flip at the kind of thing that would’ve needed to happen to keep Topanga from a goal like that.

His stomach wasn’t any more settled by the time class ended; he could have sworn he head his name being whispered in the hallways, that people were casting sidelong glances at him and then looking away when he looked back. It started as a slow whisper, a murmur in the halls, and by lunchtime the gossip may as well have been blasted through the loudspeaker:

Shawn Hunter had actually KISSED Topanga Lawrence. Like, kissed kissed her. And Cory had no idea.

Only, Cory did know. And the butterflies he hadn’t weren’t because of the kiss. Or, they were, but not for the reason everyone would have assumed. If there were already rumors going around, was that why they weren’t at school? Was it all actually too much? Not for the first time, Cory really fucking hated being in high school. Luckily, his torment didn’t last much past the eight hour day - Topanga and Shawn were waiting for him in the parking lot, leaning up against his car and smiling mega-watt smiles at him from the second they could spot him in the crowd. Shawn’s arm was draped around Topanga, and Topanga had hooked her hand in Shawn’s back pocket. They looked like Danny and Sandy from Grease, only without all the leather on Topanga’s part. Cory wanted to beam back at them. He thought he knew what their answer was. What it had to be, to get those kinds of smiles. But life was a tricky thing, and Cory had been disappointed in the past. Never like Shawn, and rarely like Topanga, but still. It had happened.

“Hey guys. Missed you in class today.”

“Yeah, we missed you too. Not the class part, though,” Shawn quipped, not moving off the car as Cory stopped to stand in front of both of them. He hitched his single backpack strap a bit higher on his shoulder and was about the most adorable fucking thing Shawn had ever seen.

“You know, there’s a rumor going around school that you two were making out. And I’m not supposed to know.”

The two shared conspiratorial glances. “We may have gotten a little...distracted earlier today. Shawn came to pick me up for school so we could finish our little talk -”

“- wait, you talked? What talk? Who talked? Talking about what?”

“Easy, Cory. Shawn came back to my house last night to talk about….everything. And then he came back this morning to walk me to school so we could finish talking.”

“Only it wasn’t just talking,” Shawn said, looking down at Topanga playfully, bumping her with his hip. Cory waited for it. For the burn of jealousy that was supposed to boil like acid in his stomach.

...nothing. No acid, no burning, just a big painful bubble of hope threatening to choke him.

“So if you guys talked, and it was more than just talking, does that mean…” Cory’s puppy dog eyes looked at them both, waiting.

Sharing one final glance, Topanga reached out and pulled him into their hug, each of them wrapping a hug around Cory. Topanga kissed him lightly, and Shawn pressed a surreptitious kiss to Cory’s temple. Cory squeezed them both as tight as he could until he couldn’t help it anymore, he broke from them to jump up and down and flail his wrists a bit. 

Shawn and Topanga burst out in laughter and grabbed him for another hug.

“Come on, Cor. I’m starving, and Chubby’s is waiting.” Topanga slid into the passenger’s seat while Shawn took up his customary place in the middle of the back seat. Cory would’ve slid across the hood of the car if he weren’t worried about hurting himself. To be honest, he wasn’t sure he’d feel any pain right at this moment. His best friend and his girlfriend were in love. With him. And possibly each other. And while nothing in life was ever perfect, knowing that the two people worth more than anything in the world to him were waiting to try something completely new and scary because they all loved each other just that much - that was pretty damn close.

Cory slid into the driver’s seat and smiled in the mirror at Shawn. “You guys are not going to believe the dream I had last night.”


	10. A Hunter's Promise

~~Dear CJ,~~

~~Dear Baby,~~

Son,

This letter feels like it should be way easier to write than it is. Maybe it’s because writing a letter in itself feels dumb. But it’s never going to be dumb, how much your mom and daddy and I love you, and your mom insisted I had to write something for your baby book. Daddy Cory already has pages and pages to include, and I’m sure your momma is worried about what you’ll think if there’s nothing from me in there, too.

Always know that I love you, okay kid? And it took me a long, long time in my life to realize what love looks like, and that it doesn’t always look the same for everybody. I wish your Grandpa Chet and Grandma Virna could see you now, but you’ll just have to trust me that they’d love you - maybe even more than I do, in their own way. 

There are going to be a lot of people in your life, son, who try and make you feel different because of the way your family looks. And they’re going to try and make you feel bad because they’re dealing with their own shit stuff. But if anyone ever tries to give you a hard time, you just tell them that your parents are braver than anyone, and that they taught you that being who you are is the bravest thing out there. And then you come tell dad if that doesn’t work, okay? Dad, not Daddy - and definitely not momma. 

I read the first part of the baby book your mom made, and I have to say kid - you’re one lucky baby. That story, all about how we fell in love in high school, when the whole world was telling us we were too young to be in love yet - that’s a good story. It’s the story of how this crazy world we all know came to be. But it’s not the only story - there’s another story, a story when we’re all a bit older and wiser and crazier - that’s even more important to how you came to be. I don’t think I’m going to put that story here - your mom would kill me, and it’d take up all the room daddy has devoted to your million baby pictures - but it’s going to be out there.

When you’re old enough, I’ll tell it to you. And you’ll love it. I promise.

Almost as much as I love you.

Dad

PS: A Hunter always keeps his promises.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so, so much to my darling beta readers who have helped me turn this tense-shifting pile of hooey into a thing I'm really, really falling in love with.


End file.
